If MLB suspends Jhonny Peralta of Detroit Tigers, it shouldn't be until next season

Let us start this out with an "if."
If Tigers' shortstop Jhonny Peralta is deemed by Major League Baseball to have violated its drug policy and is suspended, which has been widely reported as a possibility, it should not be until next season.
You won't find anybody less sympathetic with baseball's PED cheaters than I am, but the appeal process in this case must be comprehensive. Why? Because there apparently is no positive drug test involving of those implicated in the Biogenesis scandal.
There would mean a lot more time determining what happened and why. It's far less definitive than a positive drug test.
The off season presents time to sort out what happened, It would duly punish the players involved without unnecessarily throwing off the competitive balance of the championship season.

maybe i just haven't been paying attention, but am wondering what changed in the owner-union PED monitoring procedure in the aftermath of the Braun incident. or did it just stay the same, and the specimen chain of custody was tightened?

in the absence of a positive PED test, what evidence does MLB need to have to warrant a player suspension?

Duly noted, Book. But my guess is if Peralta wasn't on the list, you'd be clamoring for MLB to drop the hammer ASAP. The Tigers have underachieved so far this season and they have no viable replacement for Peralta at shortstop. They're barely hanging on to the division lead which most, including you, predicted they would run away with. I smell homer. Yes/no?

About Me

Pat Caputo is a sports columnist for The Oakland Press. Caputo covered the Tigers from 1986-98, and the Lions from 1998-2002 for The Oakland Press before becoming a columnist. Caputo was raised in Birmingham and played baseball and football at Groves High School. His photograph playing high school sports appeared in The Oakland Press. He has won numerous writing awards, including first place in column writing from the Michigan Associated Press and the Michigan Press Association, and from the Detroit Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He has been named among the Top Ten sports columnists in the nation by the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE), and has won honors in four of the APSE's six national award categories. He has also been honored for his column writing by the Suburban News Association. Caputo, who has resided in Oakland County since he was nine years old, currently lives in Lake Orion. Caputo has a radio show weeknights and weekends on 97.1 FM, The Ticket, which is the flagship station for the Tigers, Lions, Pistons and Red Wings. He also appears regularly on FOX 2 television on "SportsWorks."